172 LECTURES TO SCIENCE TEACHERS. 



densing engine from which this diagram was taken, are scat- 

 tered over the country and are wasting the fuel which it is 

 our duty to preserve for those who will come after us. If 

 you will bear these facts in mind and consider the loss indi- 

 cated by the diagram of the " engine of no progress," as I 

 have termed it, I shall feel that my labours here have pro- 

 duced some practical results. 



I cannot hope that within the limits of these two lectures 

 it has been in my power to bring before you new matter, 

 nor, indeed, is it probable that anything I could say would 

 be absolutely new to an audience such as that which I have 

 just been addressing; the utmost I can hope, therefore, is 

 that these lectures may have been suggestive, and that by 

 bringing to your minds certain points in the construction 

 and management of the steam-engine, and by impressing you 

 with the fact that upon the attention paid to such points 

 economical results depend, I may be the means of inciting 

 each one of you when returned to his own district to exert him- 

 self to improve the steam-engine standard in that district, and 

 thus to get rid of the wasteful machines to which I have 

 just alluded ; and let me remind you that by so doing each 

 of you may perform his part of the duty that devolves upon 

 scientific mechanical men, viz., that of preventing the scan- 

 dalous waste of fuel that now, alas, too frequently occurs. 



I must apologize to you for the audacity exhibited in my 

 endeavouring to lecture on a subject so extensive as that of 

 the " steam-engine " in a course of only two lectures, but let 

 me plead in extenuation that the audacity is not mine but 

 that of the Committee of Council on Education. 



In conclusion let me thank you for the forbearance you 

 have shown, and also for the very great attention you have 

 paid to me. 



